THE PHILIPPINE ISLANDS 
63 
The revenue is derived from various sources, the most 
important being the passport tax above mentioned. 
Customs dues (considerably raised in 1891), State 
lotteries, post and telegraphs, excise on palm-wine, and 
licenses for cock-fighting — the ruling passion of the 
islanders-—are the chief items. The Budget shows 
generally a deficit. In 1886 the expenditure was 
£2,326,000, the revenue £2,300,000. The estimates 
for 1891 are given as £2,145,763 and £2,119,467 
respectively. 
10. Population and Provinces. 
The population of the Philippines has been very 
variously estimated. It is chiefly arrived at by the 
number of those who paid the capitation tax. The 
last statistics of these given by Dr. Meyer show that 
1,232,544 paid tribute in 1870, and the total popula¬ 
tion was estimated at six times this number, or in round 
numbers about 7J millions. The persons living between 
the ages of 16 and 60 (the age of taxation) are usually 
about half the total population, so that the Christian 
natives and Chinese would together only amount to 2^- 
millions. The official census—if it can thus be termed 
—of 1877 gave 5,559,020 as the population of the 
Philippines, and 75,000 as that of the Sulu group. The 
latest estimate of the Archbishop of Manila places the 
total number of the inhabitants of the archipelago at 
7,500,000, and calculates that of the Sulu group at 
200,000 more. This latter is without doubt much too 
high an estimate. Prom the subjoined table given by 
Keclus, which claims to be calculated from the latest 
available data, the total numbers appear as 6,142,452. 
